Strong Week Nets Hodnett Another Speedweek Title

It appeared that we were headed to a possible upset for the Pennsylvania Sprint Speedweek championship.

But after the long grueling week came to an end Sunday night, it was veteran driver and defending Speedweek champion Greg Hodnett coming out on top of the Speedweek series after a consistent week aboard the Jim and Sandy Kline-owned No. 22 Maxim.

While Hodnett put together a week consisting of a feature win, three runner-up finishes, a third, a fourth, a seventh and an eighth place finish, it was Alan Krimes that was stealing the spotlight through the first six races of the week. In fact, Krimes had to change weekend vacation plans to continue racing because he was leading the points going into the final two races, in which he originally planned not to compete.

But as it turned out, Krimes would have mechanical failure at Port Royal on Saturday night, missed time trials but after getting a part from the J & S Fabrication team, Krimes was able to compete in his heat and eventually finished 12th in the feature. That dropped him from the points lead and he did not race on Sunday night.

“It was a long tough week for everybody and because of that, it’s very rewarding to be able to come away with the title because it is a long tough deal,” Hodnett said Monday after his third career Speedweek title. “I thought everybody did a nice job and we were very consistent through the last half of the series to be able to come away with the title. Daryn (Pittman) did a nice job all week and Alan had a great Speedweek. I wish he would not have had the problems he had at Port and been able to come out Sunday and see what happened. But he had a great week.”

Hodnett had 1,122 total points for the week with Pittman finishing second with 1,087, Lance Dewease (951), Mark Smith (908), Krimes (887), Fred Rahmer (870), Chad Layton (750), Danny Dietrich (706), Brent Marks (566) and Stevie Smith (559) completing the top 10 point paying Speedweek positions.

Mark Smith won the opener at Lincoln Speedway with Ed Lynch, Jr. taking the win at Bedford Speedway. Tyler Walker won the Grandview show and then was out for the balance of the series after an injury to his ACL when doing his backflip,.

Krimes came through with his first Speedweek win at Hagerstown as Dewease got his win in the Thursday night show at Lincoln. Pittman won the big prize-the $10,000 to win Mitch Smith Memorial at Williams Grove while Hodnett scored the Port Royal win and Pittman became the only repeat winner in the series finale at Selinsgrove.

Seventy-seven different drivers competed in at least one Speedweek show with 11 drivers making starts in all eight races.

Pittman led the week in earnings with a total of $25,400 including point money and fast time awards. Hodnett earned $22,900 for the week, which included a $2,000 bonus for his Speedweek title along with another $1,300 for winning the Rae Peters Memorial Heat Race Challenge. He won five heat races during the week.

Dewease cashed in with $16,650 in earnings followed by Mark Smith at $15,850, Krimes $15,050, Rahmer $12,300, Dietrich $8,400, Layton $7,975, Marks $5,900 and Brian Montieth $5,850.

Car counts were about average for the series with an average of 30 per meet, ranging from the high of 35 cars for the series opener at Lincoln to a low of 23 cars at the Bedford show.

The Speedweek title was also the third for car owners Jim and Sandy Kline. They also have one with former driver Fred Rahmer.

“We’re very happy to win Speedweek again but I know the boys were dragging on Sunday night,” said Sandy Kline. “I feel that as much as teams sacrifice to race this series, people taking off work to do it and those things, that the tracks could put more money in the pot to make it more worthwhile for everyone involved. It’s nice to win it with the prestige and all but it’s time someone makes this deal something sweet and very special for whoever can win the deal. A lot of time and money goes into this from the team’s end and I think it’s time for the tracks to step up to the plate and make the point series something special.”

The overall point fund is $8,000 (barring no rainouts) and split among the top 10 drivers.

“It’s a tough deal, not just for the crews but also for the car owners, because it wears people out and it’s very expensive to race everyday and that’s why a lot of teams don’t run every race,” Hodnett said.

We’ve had a “tweak” in the format for the Speedweek series so maybe it’s time to “tweak” the payoff as well to make it more attractive for teams to compete for the title.

Congratulations to Greg Hodnett, Jim and Sandy Kline and the entire #22 team on their Speedweek championship.

PIT STOPS
Lincoln Speedway has moved its starting time back to 7:30pm beginning this Saturday. The time change will run through the end of September and hopefully provide a little extra time for the track crew to make the racing surface better each week. The dry and hot weather is making track conditions less than ideal at all area speedway’s….

Lincoln Speedway will host the largest 358 Sprint car paying event in the area on Saturday, August 7 as World Energy Systems and the track have joined forces to pay the winner a cool $5,500 that night. Based in Greencastle, World Energy Systems sponsor the car of Austin Reed on the 358 Sprint car tour. The event will be a time trial event leading up the big payday for one driver that night. A raindate of September 11th will be used if needed…

It will be Kids Night this Saturday at Lincoln where games, prizes and a moon bounce await the youngsters. All kids will receive a white t-shirt that can be used at an autograph session with all of the drivers to sign. All the fun begins at 5:30pm. It will also be Kids Night at Port Royal this Saturday…

Keith Kauffman will be competing this weekend at Williams Grove and Lincoln Speedway’s in the Trone Outdoor Motorsports No. 39 sprinter. Speedweek didn’t go quite as well as the team had hoped but Keith certainly excited his fans in his heat race run Friday at the Grove…

Sammy Swindell and Jason Meyers were winners on the World of Outlaws sprint tour last weekend. Swindell won Thursday at Huset’s Speedway over Steve Kinser and Lucas Wolfe while Myers got his series leading seventh win Saturday at North Central Speedway over Donny Schatz and Joey Saldana. The top three in WoO Sprint points are only separated by 27 total points…